In testing times like these, “people tend to turn to strong symbolic figures on whom they can project their ideals,” said Hideki Nakagawa, a Nihon University sociology professor and an expert on pop culture.
What started out as a trend among video game nerds erupted into a mainstream craze this year after young women latched onto it. Japanese media quickly found a label for them — “rekijo,” or female history geeks.
In a society where market researchers recently identified a new male demographic as passive ‘herbivores’, “women seek ’super carnivorous males’,” said Ichiya Nakamura, a media and pop culture researcher at Keio University.
“The warlords were different from the cold-eyed, dispassionate Japanese men of today,” he said. “They stood out because of their strong personalities.”
In a store dedicated to samurai books and paraphernalia, a 17-year-old female fan agreed wholeheartedly, gushing that the “warlords sacrificed themselves for justice and to protect the people.”
Now, she scoffed, “politics purely serves the interests of politicians.”